OK, so you are making a point that divulging all aspects of our identity is the only way to make a full disclosure of self and be truly honest with others.

But we all know that is not true. We all know that we do not have to tell a friend all about us, in order to be close with him. There are other ways to get truly intimate.

So you are trying to be docheh my words with straw. Intimacy is not what I am talking about here, at all.

Please bear with me and I'll tell you about Captain Kirk in a minute.

First, I will share that I have seen dozens of guys who have had the hardest time just saying their right name on a phone call. I have heard the hesitating, quiet voice on the other end of the line finally admit that "yes, my name - the one the real people in my everyday life know me by - is Pinchas". It is a terrible strain for some - and I hear myself in their trembling. That same hesitancy - fear mixed with shame. It's mine, too. It's just that in my case it is behind me - in theirs it is still in front of them.

What is really going on here?

I have seen frum guys finally drag themselves into live meetings and start off the first few meetings using a 'fakish' name - their English name that no one who knows their frum persona really uses. Only to later change their names in the meetings to the Hebrew name that their wife and friends use - cuz they began to see the perverts in the room are like they are, that they need what the guys in the room have been given just as desperately as they do. No difference in that respect. That is when the walls go down and the real juicy work can finally begin. Until then, they are still unattached to what goes on in the meeting, for on some level it is not really Pinchas who is sitting there, but 'Robert' (the bad guy who is subject to porn worship).

How to bring them together?

Which brings me to Captain Kirk.

There was once an episode of Star Trek in which there was a time travel shtick, and the Kirk of the present, went 10 years into the past. Now, there was another Kirk then, too, right?

That was a big problem. The scientists told him that normally two of the same people cannot coexist. It just does not happen. But as this was an exception (it was a TV show and they were getting paid $15,000 per episode) as long as the old Kirk did not actually meet the present Kirk, all would be fine. However, if they actually met each other, the entire Time-Space Continuum would be 'ripped asunder' (chas veSholom). Under no circumstances could they be allowed to meet!

I do not remember what actually happened to Mr Shatner, but everything turned out OK for there were another few seasons of the show (and also we are all still here, no?). But my point is just this:

How does a frum guy get all drawn into his very private porn, admitting by his actions its awesome, sweet power for him, and privately have sex with himself (masturbate) with such intensity and imaginative pleasure and power? OK, so he has shame, self-loathing, and sadness afterward. But how does he do both tefillin, teaching Torah, being mekareiv and really davening for others hard and really crying for the churban, and really working on his middos....and masturbating himself with a fantasy that could only mean he (secretly) also worships the beauty and power of those naked shiksas and the act of sex? How does such a contradiction survive in him?

How does it survive in us?
My answer to myself is simple. We learn to lie a little. We lie to others and we lie to ourselves. We'll quit really soon. We won't do it any more when we are twenty....or fifty. Never on Shabbos. Never with masturbation. Etc. All lies, to ourselves. And over time, we learn to lie more and more without even noticing it, just as you cannot see yourself grow.

When we are being good, we feel good about ourselves and we wish we could forget the bad stuff we did last night - we call that a hirhur teshuvah. Really it is just so we do not hate ourselves so badly, but that's OK. We learn not to face it right now by pretending that we are 'forgiven' by Hashem. That way, one persona does not invade the other so much. It gets put off till the next time, if we are lucky.

When we are being 'bad', we wish we could forget how devoted we are to Hashem and His Torah and to our wives and children and to honesty with society - because it just feels so good to do the porn and we really see no way out of it. We know we need it and do not in a million years believe there is really an alternative for us, in the end. We end up 'ignoring' our kedusha during the act. That is lying to ourselves, and again, one persona does not see the other simultaneously. Pretending we are really rotten to the core is a much more comfortable way to act out. Nu. Who wants to hurt so much?

We walk about for years and are tortured inside, for we know the dichotomy we are hiding - we are the dichotomy. But we do not really know what to do. We fight to make one side gain mastery over the other and call that hisgabrus al hayeitzer. And we fall. Then we assume we are horrible Jews, and assume that Hashem agrees with us about that. That mistake is a hard one to shake...(see step 2)

So now about the time-travel dilemma.
When we open up to others under a username (or fake English name in a meeting) and share the entire truth (which most rarely do) about our addiction, we are still hiding our 'good' persona - the real me. It's OK to let them know the horrible dirt - yeah, all of it - as long as they do not know the 'good' persona too well. The two are just incompatible.

Thos who got caught by their wives or children know exactly what I am talking about. They understand why they getting caught was so effectivbe for a time - the desire to use the porn left them as a result of getting both personae dragged into the room at the same time. The horror of getting caught with my pants down by a co-worker, son, daughter, or wife is truly intolerable to anyone who has experienced it. Why?

Because the hypocrisy is mercilessly forced to come to a bitter end. The Time-Space Continuum has ripped asunder. We look frantically for a place to bury ourselves. It's hell.

It is the two Kirks being forced to see eachother by a third party - and only a party who knows both personae can possibly do that. Till that happens, we are all players. Lying a bit about the 'real us' to ourselves and to others. 

Some of us insist on solving our problem without bringing the two personae together. Perhaps they are just avoiding the terribly painful end of their hypocrisy, perhaps not. I do not know what is best for another. But in my own case, I got caught, and it still didn't help. After a few weeks I was back at it and it got worse and worse until I couldn;t take it any more. i was begging for someone to rip off my cover and get me real! My wife could not do that, for she does not understand what I am talking about when I describe the desperation to get the sweet porn in my mind and heart and does not understand the allergy to it that I have.

So I needed real meetings - with real addicts. Perverts for decades who chose the path of sobriety because they had no choice. Just like me. People who can hear both sides of me. And I use my real name, wear my normal Jewish outfit, and talk with them freely about my real life.

And that flows out into being real with everybody else in my life, whether they know about my problem, or not.

And that is why so many of us are OK with goyim in meetings, but shrink into a corner when they meet a frum yid. There is a common strong desire to avoid and evade. And I do not blame them, for I had that, too. Here is a guy who can bring them even closer to the true full self! It's more pain to go through. But more healing, too. 

Interestingly, I have seen newly recovering program-guys meet people from the meeting in public places just 'out of the blue' and totally ignore them, as if they didn't know them at all. Those guys did not remain sober. I think they may have been shocked by the cross-over from their 'meeting life' into their 'real life'. They were not willing to smile discreetly and say a polite "Hi" to the other guy. Instead, here was trouble - "so get away from me quick." Oy vavoi.

This is precisely why AA has a strong tradition of real anonymity. We do not reveal the identity of anyone else we meet in the rooms to non-members. Ever. But it's not about shame, at all. It's because sharing the secrets of others will not help their recovery at all! Only the truth that they want to share will help them.

Those who just get caught and stay clean out of fear of further humiliation never, ever stay better. Getting humiliated into sobriety does not work, until there is some humility added. Humilty (in hachno'oh to the truth) is the underpinning of the steps.

And that is why 'accountability groups' are nice but will ultimately fail, as long as they are based on avoiding shame - which they can easily become all about.

And that is why opening up to the wife (and remaining consistently open with her) is so very powerful - when done at the right time. It is powerful medicine for my recovery and powerful medicine for the marriage. Honesty there removes yet another layer of hiding from ourselves that has to go to the boards for true freedom.

Sharing my credit card number and address would not do any of these things for me, and neither would pulling up my pant-leg. It's not about compromising my security, nor my anonymity. It's not about getting hurt nor for the sake of being punished for all my wrongs until I can finally be good. This is not Teshuvah and it is not sigufim. It's all and only about being the real me with everyone that I can be, to the extent that I can be without violating the health of my family and others. We do the best we can in that, and ask Hashem to make it work right. And it works, period.

Do you get what I am talking about? 

(Really I know you were just playing devil's advocate, YosefhaTzaddik, but I humored you to get it all out there be"H. May it be helpful to someone, Amein.)

Ihavestrength wrote on 22 Jul 2020 04:41:




"Hashem Help Me" post=353133 date=1596056682 catid=4
Meyer, how are you doing? 78 is an incredible accomplishment. Look at it this way. If someone used to act out once every third day or so, that means in a year he unfortunately acted out approximately 120 times. Now let's compare that with someone who now makes it clean for 78 days or so - that is an average of about 8 times a year! Incredible.   Besides, once someone has gone 78 days, one realizes that obviously these actions are unnecessary, and as desirable as they are, one can live without them. People working on stopping to speak lashon hara come to the same conclusion after "falling" following longer "clean" streaks. (Although many here would argue that lashon hara is not addictive, it does appear to have habit forming qualities. How many times do we feel, "i am plotzing holding in that juicy piece of info which will redirect the conversation about ploiny")

A thought that's been on my mind, lately--
During the night calls, were reading the beginning of Bill's Story. And, if you've read Bill's Story, you've seen how difficult it is to read. Bill continues to sink deeper and deeper into his addiction.
It is so frustrating for me to read this. I want to skip to the end, already! I want to get to the resolution. I want to read about the skills. I want to learn what I need to do. I'm wondering to myself, am I even getting anything out of this?
But, I realized last night- that's not what this is about. This is a process. I need to build my way through it. I need to hit rock bottom (while still on top, as the handbook says). Read about rock bottom. Experience rock bottom. Once I am there, then I can move on.

This past tisha bav (I realize this is not inyanei deyoma, but it's what's on my mind...), I remember sitting on the floor and thinking how frustrated I was. There are so many reasons we talk about why the churban happened, there are so many things we need to fix. And I remember sitting there, and all I wanted to do was to just get up and start fixing things.
But, that's not what the day is about. Tisha bav is about the experience of the loss. We need to really experience the loss fully and competely. It is only after that point that we can really see what needs to be done and fix it.

That's what Bill's Story is for me. It's the story of my personal churban. The story of my tragic loss. Only once I can fully experience this loss I can recognize how to fix it.

To pull this back to more timely topics, the same thing can be said with sefira. I would love to jump from yetzias mitzrayim to shavuos. And, I many times feel after the chag that I am ready for kabbalas haTorah right then and there.
In truth, however, I am not. Sefira, too, is a process. We need to work our way through. Work our way up.

It's now day 32 of the Omer. Nearing the home stretch. I'm looking back and remembering where I was only 32 days ago. It's not so many posts before this one, where I was pleading for help from you. I am growing. I am gaining insight from the calls. This forum is inspiring me.
I am far from perfect in controlling my lust, but I see myself taking steps. With your help, and with the some serious siyata dishmaya, I believe that I can continue in my progress.

onthewayup wrote on 26 Jul 2020 22:37:

My friend, the only thing that can stop you is you.
With all the tips, tricks and strategies, this is something I constantly remind myself.
Stay strong

Thanks. Yes I sometimes try to outsmart my own system. That is what this addiction does to me. anyway see my post below for today. I will try my best.

229. This is tough stuff - but BH we are still staying strong. 

I want to remind myself for a second why I spend so much effort on this whole thing...

1) We are here for just a short while and after that we go somewhere else....
2) I want my time in the next world to be super special
3) Any unallowable "pleasure" I get in this world will take away from my place in the next world. 
4) Lust takes away my ability to get closer to Hashem
5) Addiction is destructive 
6) Lust inhibits my ability to have  healthy relationships with others

Thats enough for now. I think I am convinced! 

Thanks for listening